Thursday, March 7, 2013

Closet Built in Shelves Tutorial

Organization. It's the difference between feeling stressed out in my home, or relaxed. I could get on a soapbox right now, and tell you all the reasons why I am a proponent of an organized home...but I'll spare you. I know some folks actually work better with everything in a jumble, organized chaos I believe is what they call it. I married a type like that in fact, and let me tell you, we both have our oppinions about whose working method is better. Mine, obviously.
Anyway, I'm actually here to show how you can turn any unused closet (or nook) into well organized piece of valuable real estate in your home. You may have a closet that looks like this...the potential for it to fill up and become a major threat to bodily health is almost certain.

I have two of these closets in my soon to be work shop, and I knew I needed to something about them before they got hopelessly out of hand. The solution was quite simple and inexpensive ($12 to be exact)... built in shelves!

Music to my eyes! Here's how I did it. First measure the width and depth of your closet. Mine was 46 inches wide and 20 inches deep. You need long boards to across and smaller boards for the side supports. I used scrap wood for the side supports and some very inexpensive press board for the shelves. I cut them down using a jig saw, because that was handiest at the moment. ( Ok, really...circular saws still sorta spook me.)

My closets are weird. One side of them is cinder block and the other is wood. On the wood end I just screwed the support boards where I wanted them. (hhmmm why yes, there is termite damage on these closets...yet another reason I went as cheap as possible for these shelves. They will have to be gutted and re-built at some point down the road. Thanks termites.)

On the cinder block side of the closet, I had to glue the support boards. I don't have the tools for screwing into cinder block, so this was the next best thing.

Just keep adding supports for however many shelves you want.

I just laid the long boards across without attaching them. I wanted to be able to remove them easily if I ever wanted to use this as a regular closet again.

I put two shelves in both closets which created a huge amount of storage. One closet holds fabric bolts and remnants.

The other holds craft supplies and sewing notions.

An over the door pantry organizer really added to the storage options as well. I'll probably get another one for the other closet, because it's so handy for holding small things.

Here is a shot of how this room began and you can see the closets I am talking about. I think I will be doing the same thing with shelves to that center nook. I think it will make a great spot for storing all my totes of folded fabric.

If you missed seeing the other changes so far to this room see here and here. I'm currently working on shelves of a different sort for side walls ... and I am so excited to finish them I looooove them! This room will definitely be my favorite spot in the house when I'm finished.
So what about you? Do you work better with things tip-top tidy or in organized chaos?

I call my property Weedy Acres Home and if I named my house it would be 'The Clutter House'. I do de-clutter from time to time and love the tidiness as long as it can last. For me, the big deterrent to organizing is that I can not remember where the new place is that I have put it, only the last place that I found it.